The agency has also poached rival healthcare shop Solaris Health director Joanne Satchell to head its new medical education division.

Red Door founder and MD Catherine Warne said: 'We are establishing medical education as an additional specialist offering in response to our clients' needs. Increasing regulation on both sides of the Atlantic means that a number of clients are proactively looking for a clearer division between their medical education and PR programmes.'

Satchell was a founding member at Solaris and helped to expand its medical education business from four to 17 people in three years.

She worked on accounts for a number of pharma firms including GlaxoSmithKline, Shire Pharmaceuticals and Bristol Myers Squibb.

Previously, she worked at Ogilvy Healthworld as an account manager.

At Red Door, Satchell will manage the agency's current portfolio of medical education programmes and grow its offering.

'The move to divide the business is a step towards following the US model of using completely separate agencies for PR and medical education activity,' she said.